seen from Bulgaria
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Australia
seen from China
seen from Bulgaria
seen from Singapore
seen from Greece
seen from United States
seen from Bulgaria
seen from Argentina
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Bulgaria
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Romania
Bruce, coming back from his training years as a new Eldirtch Being and praying Alfred won’t notice: “Alfred, I—”
Alfred, who was secretly an Eldritch Being the entire time and can suddenly See Bruce who can suddenly See him too:
Bruce:
Alfred:
Bruce: “…well.”
What else is there to do on my morning commute than write a big bat dad and small boy son?
--
"If this is going to work, you have to be, like...smaller!"
The hulking shadow standing before Dick tilts its head. He is the city. (Sort of. The North of it. But not much happens here, so he prefers to skulk about the Old Centre with Gotham herself. She doesn't usually mind, if he stays out of her way.) His tendrils usually spread far, curled around neighbourhoods at a time. The towers let him creep up, up, peering over the city with only a thin veil of smog in his wake. (He likes to think he's shielding people from the sun. That thing is way too bright.) He keeps no fewer than a thousand and forty eight in his embrace at once, wide as it is.
So he thinks the form he's taken is quite small. His smoky cloak has been squished, squeezed into the rough form of one of his little guys, with finite limbs and a static face, and he's only as tall as the church attic Dick is speaking to him from, sitting on the street and leaning on the gabled roof of the building addition with his weightless form. That's tiny.
"Mysterious billionaires who want to adopt circus orphans can't be sixty feet tall. Awesome, but the nuns would never allow it."
The shadow huffs, a cloud of smoke puffing out where he put his singular mouth. He squeezes more, eye level now to the window, two feet planted on the street, just out of the streetlamps' range.
The kid makes a beckoning gesture. "Come on. A little more." The kid is lucky he's cute.
So he squeezes again, compresses all of his smoke and memories into yet a smaller container, and he is in the attic with Dick, resisting the pull of the shadows in the rafters, decorated with cobwebs and dust and the complicated emotions ingrained deep in the bones of houses of faith. There's also a couple bats up there, judging by the tickle in his new nose.
He can't hear anything outside, suddenly, no concrete groans and metal on metal, no sea breeze. Just Dick's soft gasp.
The child inspects his form, now practically solid with how tightly he's packed into a six foot frame. His cloak has taken on the feel of something leathery—skin-like, he supposes. It's unsettling. He has 'felt' before, but it was never quite so haptic. Dick touches his arm, and he feels it. Dick looks different from down here. He's never seen a person like this.
I'm like you, he thinks. He commands his smoke to refract the light, mimick the little one—pale flesh, dark head. Blue eyes.
What do you mean he's not eldritch?
What if all of the members of the Bat Family other than Tim Drake were secretly eldritch abominations?
They all work very hard at pretending to be human, and they've even gotten pretty good at passing. They can even mostly avoid the uncanny valley when in their civilian identities. There was a heck of a learning curve, but they've gotten things figured out for the most part.
Enter: Tim Drake
Weird, poorly socialized, probably autistic Tim Drake
The Bats think they've encountered a fellow eldritch being in disguise, and one that seems like he could use some help blending in. Naturally, they're quick to welcome him into their fold. Jason is delighted to take his turn at being a big brother mentor.
It takes a comedically long time for anyone to realize something's up because there is an absurd amount of overlap between stuff you need to know for masking and stuff you need to know to pass as human.
Meanwhile, Tim is amazed that the Bats have apparently decided he's cool enough to hang out with. It's like something out of his daydreams. They even have good advice for him on problems he hadn't known how to ask about. They are so patient and understanding about it, too. They never get annoyed with him for not already knowing. They also seem to be okay with the bits of weirdness he can't change.
Just weird kid Tim getting bundled into an incredibly helpful and supportive found family of eldritch entities. They're all going to get a good grade in human-ing, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve.
...
I imagine the Bats are various different kinds of eldritch abominations because they're still adopted. They look wildly different when not in human form.
Bruce is a mass of... shadows? Smoke? Something dark and formless that shifts and flows in different ways depending on his mood.
Dick kind of looks like a pile of owls that is also somehow a single body.
Barbara is a spiral galaxy with stars that are also eyes somehow?
Jason is a solid-looking mass of muscle with six strong legs, a thick coat of shaggy hair, a mouth that opens much further along his body than it seems like it should, and even more teeth than you'd expect a mouth that size to have.
Stephanie Brown is kind of like an incredibly dense storm system with purple glitter.
Cassandra is a silhouette through which undiscovered nebulae can be seen. What she is a silhouette of depends on her mood.
Tim, they have only ever seen in his meticulously well-crafted human form. He's really good at that part even if he needed some help with the behavioral bits.
Damian is half human. Talia saw a mass of living darkness trying really hard to pretend to be a man and decided she was into that.
...
Dick: So, eye contact is actually pretty simple once you have the formula figured out. You need to cycle between looking at the other person and looking at something else at the appropriate frequency. If you look at them too much it will come across as staring. If you look away for too long they'll think you're not paying attention to them. You'll need to experiment to figure out the appropriate frequency.
Tim: *frets*
Jason: You don't have to look straight at their eyes, just in the general direction of their face.
Tim: Oh! I can do that!
...
I think Eldritch Bruce having history with the league of assassins in a markedly less inentional way than Canon would be funny. Like, you'd think an encounter between an eldritch abomination and a cult would be deliberate on someone's part, but no.
Bruce was still young and unskilled at differentiating between normal and abnormal human behavior.
Here's a batblob!
+ Alternates under cut
The Moon will sing a song for me
Death. It is sadly as constant as life, both equivocally interlocked. Like the Moon to the Sun, Night to Day, Power and Balance. It licks at one's heels like fire, it is not a matter of if you'll die, it is simply when. For Bruce, born of the cries of his people in the throes of despair, death is but a close companion, a fellow confidant, something that is more him than he is. The Night stalks the streets of Gotham, seeking to save his people or lead their spirits to a better place. He is a beacon of hope amongst the pain, not simply a saviour, but a shepherd, a lighthouse, a signal. An ethereal moon shining bright in the dark, illuminating the dreary night sky. But sometimes that cross weighs heavy. For Clark however, death is an enemy rivalled only by the grief it brings in its wake. His life crumbles at his parent's death, forcing him to grapple with his earthly origins and unearthly powers. With his loving family at his back, he learns to accept his abilities as a part of him, something phenomenal, powerful. A beautiful sun, blazing in all his glory, a budding symbol of hope for the wronged. What will happen, when the Sun and the Moon cross paths? An eclipse, of course.
Alright! This is my work for @superbatbigbang2025 , such a wonderful event with wonderful people who participated and made it so fun to be in. Special thanks to the artist of the beautiful works for this fic, Gotham and our lovely beta, RenaiRen, both of whom were the best team members I could ever ask for. Check out the other fics in the collection, there are literally so many cakes for everyone. Happy Superbat-ing!
The result of me being extra about this event
Tags and other info below ¡
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types, Batman (Comics) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Alfred Pennyworth & Bruce Wayne, Gotham City & Bruce Wayne Characters: Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth Additional Tags: Eldritch Gotham City (DCU), Eldritch Bruce Wayne, Cryptid Bruce Wayne, Cursed Gotham City (DCU), Sentient Gotham City (DCU), Gotham City Loves Bruce Wayne, references to Batman: The Knight, Bruce Wayne Needs a Hug, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Bruce Wayne Gets a Hug, Alfred Pennyworth is So Done, Young Bruce Wayne, Pre-Batman Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth is Trying his Best, he just wasn't expecting to raise a baby horror movie creature, Bruce Wayne Has Issues, Wingfic, Kinda, borderline father-son relationship, Bruce Wayne Loves Gotham City, Autistic Bruce Wayne, archive warning just in case, Hurt Bruce Wayne Series: Part 1 of Gotham's Eldritch Adoption Network Summary:
Left kneeling in the blood of his murdered parents, Bruce Wayne is reborn into something a little less than human, something was awoken that refuses to return to its slumber. What looks like a curse may actually be a blessing, or there was just something wrong with Bruce before he became a monster. That could be it too.
A DC / Batman What If:
What if Bruce wasn’t the bio son of Martha and Thomas Wayne? What if Bruce wasn’t even human?
_________________________________________________
It was a heartbreaking day when Martha and Thomas Wayne had found out that Martha was infertile and could never bare children. Thomas’ heart ached from the broken wails of his distraught wife. God, he hated this. He wished he could do something to alleviate her sorrow, but had no clue how. He walked down the halls of the hospital until he arrived at an open air balcony. Leaning over the railing he sighed and lit up a cigarette, the glow of the match and the burning of the embers shown dim in the fading light of day. He puffed at his cig and breathed out a billowing cloud of smoke, lost deep in thought. It was quiet until a broken distorted wail of a baby split the air, causing Thomas to shoot straight up and look around trying to find the source of the inhuman cry. There, in a woven basket made of river reeds, forgotten bloodied cloth, and pigeon feathers, lay a babe, or what one would assume was a babe. Thomas gaped, in shock. Where had it come from. It was a tiny thing with tiny ebony colored wings like that of a bat or those of a stone gargoyle, and skin a pale gray soot color. It’s eyes opened revealing eye the color of shattered sapphires. Thomas gently picked up the almost eldritch like baby from the basket. The baby was wrapped in a grungy white baby blanket that almost seemed as if it was thrown out from the hospital itself. There was a note gently pinned to the cloth.
“Thomas Wayne,” it read, “I have watched over you your entire life, and, in my time of need, I need you to do the same for my son. I have seen your wife’s suffering, and know I will not be able to take care of him myself, and so have thus left him in your hands. My brave guiding knight, you have done much for me as your city, do the same for him. His given name is Bruthíum, but feel free to give him a human name as well. I trust in you, please treat him as if your own. Yours Eternally, Lady Gotham.”
Oh, god. Thomas had finally realized what, and who, he held cradled in his arms. It was the son born of the city herself. He held the babe close to his chest and ran a finger over the pudgy gray cheek of the tiny tot which quickly bled to be a soft pale cream as the boy’s wings faded from view leaving the boy human in appearance. If no one looked to closely, the boy could have even passed as Thomas and Martha’s own. His heart bursts with gratitude for the lady Gotham. His city had heard his wife’s cries and his own desperate pleas and passed them her own babe to raise as their own.
“Thank you, my lady, thank you,” he breaths reverent as he holds the boy close, turning to run back to his wife, leaving only the smoldering remains of a burnt out cigarette on the floor of a third story balcony.
|| October 26: Burning
Dick makes friends with a certain demon. Unfortunately, normal people aren’t quite into that, so looks like the kid has to go ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
tags below
